Looking To Industrial Gas Turbines As Engines Of Economic Growth

Gas Turbines: Engines Of Economic Expansion

September 14, 1992|By ROBERT WEISMAN; Courant Staff Writer

Frank L. Bruno wants to sell gas turbines to generate power. Joseph J. McGee wants to create jobs in recession-ravaged Connecticut. And Joel N. Gordes has a vision of this state as a 21st-century font for a clean new source of energy to power ships, oil pipelines, factories and towns from the Farm Belt to the Baltic nations.

Not surprisingly, these three -- and other advocates of gas turbine technology -- have found one another. And they've embarked on an experiment that could help define Connecticut's industrial base in the coming decades. Their mission, simply put, is to find new applications and markets for a technology that already dominates Connecticut manufacturing: gas turbine engines. Although most Connecticut-built turbines power jets, helicopters and battle tanks, turbines also can be used -- and are being used in ever-larger numbers -- to generate electricity.

"There's an energy-hungry world out there, and we have the technology here in Connecticut to satisfy that hunger," says Gordes, an energy consultant and former state representative from Colebrook who has spearheaded a gas turbine task force in Connecticut's General Assembly.

"We are the turbine capital of the world," Gordes says. "We're in the lead in a field that's growing, and we should stay in the lead. We have to identify the future and invest in it." The effort is coming none too soon. Many of the traditional markets for Connecticut-built turbines are drying up as the Pentagon rolls back orders for turbine-powered aircraft and armored vehicles. Another leading market, passenger jetliners, is being stymied by the slump in the global airline industry.

Plunging demand for weapons and commercial aircraft is prompting the layoffs of thousands of manufacturing workers from Connecticut prime contractors and suppliers, including such giants as Pratt & Whitney of East Hartford, Hamilton Standard of Windsor Locks and Textron Lycoming of Stratford. The successful marketing of turbines as power generators could offset some of those cuts

while preserving existing turbine production lines.

Beyond that, there is hope that a huge new market could be opening up for industrial turbines derived from aircraft engines. Research data compiled by Hartford-based United Technologies Corp. projects the worldwide market for such turbines will exceed $20 billion during the coming decade, partly because of improved technology that makes them cheaper and more efficient than other energy alternatives.

"It's possible we could be bigger in sales volume than Pratt & Whitney's government engine business by the late 1990s," suggests Bruno, chief operating officer of a Pratt sister unit, Turbo Power and Marine Systems of Farmington, which produces industrial turbines modeled on Pratt jet engines. Turbo Power and Marine, like Pratt, is part of UTC, and 80 percent of the power at Pratt's main plant in East Hartford comes from a cogeneration unit supplied by Turbo Power and Marine.

Bruno's bullish scenario is far from inevitable, however. Analysts note that Connecticut companies face stiff competition from U.S. and foreign turbine producers. Such reservations have crystallized in questions about the wisdom of a $3 million state grant to Turbo Power and Marine this summer.

McGee, the state's economic development commissioner, championed the risk-sharing grant as a model of an emerging industrial policy in which the state will help underwrite new jobs-creating ventures by building on industrial assets now in place.

"We're looking to leverage jobs in Connecticut," McGee explains. "This is a way to use state funds as an investment vehicle to target the state's existing skill base."

The campaign to promote industrial gas turbines as an engine for Connecticut's economy has a long history. Turbo Power and Marine helped introduce the turbine generators in the 1960s and was a leading supplier until the market crashed with the oil shocks of the 1970s. Since then, the company has continued to support its products in the field.

General Electric Co., based in Fairfield, has become the leading U.S. producer of industrial turbines in recent years as the market bounced back in response to global energy trends. GE, however, manufactures its turbines out of state. A third state manufacturer, Textron Lycoming, already in the marine turbine business, is studying the idea of building smaller turbines fueled by landfill-produced methane gases.

Gordes, a clean-energy advocate, began to worry about the future of Connecticut's defense-dependent economy in the late 1980s while serving as a state lawmaker. "We could already see on the horizon that military spending was coming down and we were going to need defense conversion activities," he recalls.